Want to Become a Writer? How to Set Up Your Writing Area

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Amy Kierce is a freelance writer/editor who has worked full-time as an editor for PARADE, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Victoria. She is pitching a novel as we speak. Her blog, CIRCA-77, chronicles her adventures as a kid of the ’70s, when playtime was unsupervised. In her new blog for Parade.com, Writer 101, she demystifies the world of writers and gives advice on how we can all jump in.

Thinking about writing? The best way to begin is to make a writing area. So look around your home. Is there an untapped corner you could claim? Sure, you can use the kitchen table. But I’m from the school of thought that says writing needs to have its own little area.

Here’s the recipe:

Get a flat surface. I write on a card table in the corner of a downstairs room, under a window. At one time, this card table was the only thing we had in our apartment that could stand in as a desk. Now it’s simply part of what I do. You can’t cop an attitude writing on a card table, though I once yearned for a farmer’s table and still kind of do.

Put it somewhere. Quiet would be nice. If you can’t find a quiet corner, then you’ll probably have to rely upon the early mornings or later nights to write, considering life tasks. That’s okay. The internet is full of stories about writers writing in worse places, so never feel bothered that you don’t have the perfect writing life. Nobody does.

Make your writing area attractive to you. Even if you’re next to the furnace. I’ve got my writing area organized with baskets from Target and a funky end-table that was my husband’s former girlfriend’s brother’s. Follow? Everything has coffee rings, and I like that way. I am a dirt-dog writer and proud of it. My area looks productive and ready to accept whatever I have in mind for it. It is my crystal cavern.

But don’t be picky. Life is always on the move. As we speak, the entire room where I write is a holding pen for “all the stuff we have to throw in a bin.” There’s the blue bathroom sink and vanity from 1954, a plank, a dead treadmill, and so on, but I don’t see this or feel its presence when I write. In due time the mess will be gone and we’ll fix up the room to be a Teenville for the kids, but this corner of the room, this area, will always be mine. Ownership is key.

Include a trophy or a ribbon. It doesn’t matter for what. But somewhere, in some box, you know you have it. On the window shelf over my card table there’s a trophy that I won when I was first female in a two-mile road race in Tarrytown, N.Y. I was 14, and I had heard the other woman behind me the entire race. She never got me. So, after the race, I approached the man in charge behind the event table that held a sea of shiny trophies. “I’d like my trophy,” I said. The man looked at me, and replied, “We don’t have any for women.” I didn’t understand. “But I won,” I said. He gave me the third place man’s trophy.

Tape your notes to the wall, and be a little messy about it. Nothing shouts ownership more than writing ideas taped to a wall. I taped an illustrated map of Block Island with markings that show where my characters live, along with a napkin that says, “Stop me before I volunteer again.” I also have notes for my next book that remind me there will be a next book. Oddly enough, I’m proud of my notes.

Nervous about a new project? Include an item that grounds your thoughts. I have a stuffed pig that was the dog’s toy. This reminds me that I will have a second novel, because my second novel has a pig farm, and I have a stuffed pig to remind me. Sounds simple, right? It works!

Do not have enormous decorative expectations for your writing area. Like my life, my writing area might never be perfect. Maybe someday I’ll make it nicer with a Tiffany lamp or something, who knows, but the truth is, an area where one writes should simply be functional and comfortable. There is no perfection in writing and above all, the beauty should be put onto the page.

But do make sure your chair is super-comfortable. I have a fabby desk chair, I admit.

Laptop or paper and pen? I use a laptop and type quickly. Which do you prefer?

You might be surprised at how you feel about your writing area. If I don’t write for a while, I start to miss my area, and I’ll go downstairs and look at it for a few seconds and then go back upstairs and stuff the dishwasher/etc. If it’s been a real long while, I’ll sit in the chair. A few times I’ve cried in my area, as if it’s a good friend. I don’t like the nomadic coffee shop hopping, laptop bag digging in to my shoulder, listening to music or conversation I didn’t choose. Me, I need to own it, and it needs to be pure. Meaning, I don’t do emails there. Or Facebook. The feelings and coffee rings need to be mine.

At some point, your writing area will take on your personality. If writers were baseball players, I’d be the one with dirt all over her uniform and her hair in a ponytail, shouting opinions across the field and shaking the dugout fence. I’m passionate about writing but I never earned an MFA. Once in a while I’ll yearn for the pedigree, the validation, some applause! Even though I’m secretly proud that I taught myself. My writing area has books and notes and paper and tape. A cup holder for pens. Tissue box so I don’t have to get up. It’s the worker me. It’s serious.